Saturday, February 22, 2014

Beth, myself and the rest of the Gluten Free & Allergen Free Wellness Event gang returned to our homes from Austin a couple weeks ago. I had only been to Houston for events and had always wanted to visit the Lone Star State jewel of a city. Austin is well known for good music, lots of great Tex-Mex food, and we must not forget golf. But there is a deep undercurrent of progressive thoughts and culture that beats strong in their food.

We were joined by Pam Jordan, the best Blogger Coordinator/Speaker/Cookbook Author I have ever worked with! She also did an excellent job of putting together some great videos for her contribution to My Life Without Food Allergies. Please take a look at them and see for yourself.

My favorite pic of Pam, she is on the far left grinning

from behind her vendor booth in Raleigh, NC

The night before the Austin GF/AF Event, we all met at Garrido's downtown. This restaurant is well known for having local, seasonal, and fresh Mexican inspired dishes. Their seafood is out of this world yummy and their menu items can easily be gluten free in most cases. The staff was knowledgeable and one blogger shared that she didn't get sick with such excitement that it made my heart melt.

FACT: It does snow and sleet in Texas

Well, I remember looking at the weather forecast once someone commented on the Facebook page, but I had no idea that we were about to get an Arctic blast felt once every 10 years. Austin was spared, but the upper half of the Lone Star State was covered in it. The morning of the event it was 30 degrees! The wind is something not to fight with in Texas either. When it gets windy and cold, it's bitter. And Texans just don't deal with it as well as some of us from the Northern half of the US.

Even so, we had wonderful people travel in from Dallas, Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Houston. No one was in an accident that we know of, thank goodness. Everyone filed in with eager faces and smiles. They came to hear informational speakers and share in warming up with some New Planet Beer, Tito's Vodka Kombucha Punch, Leprechaun Cider and Gatti's Pizza made by Smart Flour Foods. They also had hot food at My Fit Foods booth, with Lemon Pepper Chicken and Brown Rice with veggies and a Say CheezZ warm cheesy brazillian bite to go with it. Green Plate Foods is always a favorite for us when in Texas as well.

Little Herds is a charity organization whose mission is to educate the population in America on the more sustainable protein source of insects and the growing trend of people trying Entomophagy (the eating of insects) as a dietary novelty that may just be the best thing to happen to our environment, but not the cattle farming industry.

Nothing is funnier than reading Tweets that say, "I just ate a cricket and washed it down with some Tito's Vodka #BOSS"

On left Roasted Crickets and on right cookies made with their milled flour

How did we become the first GF/AF Event in the country to offer cricket cookies to our attendees? Because we're just that crazy about education!
To back that claim, we invited the founder of Gluten Free School herself, Jennifer Fugo, as our keynote speaker. And we are so glad we did! I just love Jennifer and love her passion! Her no nonsense approach to helping those in need of easy and cost effective gluten free dietary regimes was highly motivational.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Gosh, is it really almost the 6th year of the Charlotte Gluten & Allergen Free Wellness Event? Time flies by in the blink of an eye! It seems like not that long ago, we were planning the first Charlotte event at Johnson & Wales University with the much needed help of their event staff. I had never even been to a food show, but I had been a hair designer in hair events and figured I could tackle the task.

The idea for an event originally began when we were discussing an event we had read about that featured the best of what was new in gluten free foods. My daughter was 7 and had been diagnosed with celiac disease. Because of her grief over her dietary change, I chartered and became the Chapter Leader for R.O.C.K.(Raising Our Celiac Kids) Charlotte.

My family remembers me spouting on about how we should have an event in Charlotte for the support groups. The rest is a history spanning six seasons of events from Nebraska, down to Texas, across to Florida and back to North Carolina. It has been a wild and interesting ride that we are now going to be sharing with you.

Scouting out amazing products and companies to showcase their accomplishments keeps raising that bar ever higher.

Supporting people mentally who are going through dietary change is equally important in addition to product knowledge

Education and betterment of ourselves through knowledge is a win-win for everyone

In November of 2013, we held an event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was our second attempt to hold an event in Louisiana. The first one was in New Orleans, but I will save that story for another post...

Before every event, we host a Blogger Dinner Party at a local restaurant that does gluten free right. At the Baton Rouge event, we found ourselves in this tiny little Cajun restaurant, Jasmine's On The Bayou located in a strip mall on a side street. While we ate our Rocket Shrimp appetizer, Jodi Stewart of Know Gluten told me that she thought a blog about our adventures in setting up gluten free events would be interesting.
So, if you love this blog, Jodi is the woman to thank.

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Author of Blog

Welcome to Allergy Free Back Roads where we travel the U.S.A. setting up events for allergen-free living. On most trips, my teenage daughter, Erin a.k.a. "Doodle", comes along with me. We have been planning these events since Erin was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2008.

We live in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, in the heart of Appalachia - But, you never know where we will end up next. I hope you will find motivation, perseverance, and a dose of humor thrown in while relating to our adventures as we travel; experiencing different cultures, allergen-free foods, and finding commonality in community.

The opinions and articles written here are my own and not paid for by the companies reviewed.